THE MACKEREL PUBSE-SEINE FISHERY. 265 
the old adage, prepare to ‘try, try, again, or mayhaps, as I have seen the case, from one barrel to 
over two hundred of the shining beauties are secured, and are soon tumbling over the rail from 
the big dip net, and the hearts of the fisher lads are made glad, even though the prospect of an 
all night and day job at dressing and salting be in prospect.” 
THE MACKEREL POCKET OR SPILLER.—In 1877 the schooner Alice, of Swan’s Island, had a 
bag-net made of haddock ganging-line, into which the fish were transferred when there were too 
many to be cared for at once. This vessel began the season in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, but 
caught only 200 barrels of mackerel there, and later fished on the coast of Maine, where, up to 
October, she had caught 1,400 barrels. 
A development of this idea is the mackerel pocket or spiller, patented in April, 1880, by H. E. 
Willard, of Portland, Me., an article long needed in the mackerel seine fishery, and which has 
received from the fishermen the name of “ mackerel pocket” or “spiller.” It was first used by the 
patentee in 1878; and Capt. George Merchant, jr., of Gloucester, Mass., invented and put into 
practical operation an improved spiller in 1880, though it was not until the succeeding summer 
that the advantages of its use was known to the majority of the mackerel fishermen, who have 
hastened to adopt it, and now all of the mackerel vessels sailing from this port are provided with 
one of the pockets. 
The apparatus is a large net-bag, 36 feet long, 15 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. It is made of 
stout, coarse twine, and is attached to the side of the vessel, where it is kept in position, when in 
use, by wooden poles or “ outriggers,” which extend out a distance of 15 feet from the schooner’s 
rail. 
When distended in this manner, a spiller will hold over 200 barrels of mackerel, which can 
thus be kept alive, as in the well of a smack, until the crew, who have captured them in the great 
purse-seines, have time to cure their catch. As is well known, it frequently happens that several 
hundred barrels of mackerel are taken at a single haul. Heretofore, when such a large quantity 
of fish were caught, but a comparatively small portion of them could be cured by the crew of the 
vessel to which the seine belonged. The result was, that when a large catch was made a consid- 
erable percentage of the fish were generally “given away” to some other vessel, since if only a - 
part of them were removed from the seine to the vessel’s deck, the remainder being left in the net 
until the first lot were cured, the chances were nine to one that the fine twine of which the purse- 
seines are made would be bitten in many places by the swarming dogfish (Squalus americanus), 
that bete noir of the mackerel fisher. In addition to the injury to the net, the inclosed body of 
fish were thus allowed to escape, and went streaming out through the numerous holes made by the 
keen teeth of these voracious bloodhounds of the sea, which, in their fierce and ravenous pursuit 
of the imprisoned mackerel, usually succeeded in robbing the fisherman of a large portion of the 
fruits of his labors.* 
The “spiller” is made only of coarse twine, and though not entirely exempt from the ravages 
of the dogfish and sharks, is rarely injured by them; and now when a large school of mackerel are 
caught in a seine the fish are turned into the bag, from which they are “bailed. out” on to the 
schooner’s deck only as fast as they can be dressed, and in this way it frequently happens that a 
full fare may be secured in a single set of the net. 
* Capt. S. J. Martin writes, that in the summer of 1881 the crew of one of the mackerel schooners endeavored 
to save their seine from the depredations of the dogfish by hauling the staysail underneath it, thinking that if they 
could thus prevent the dogfish from seeing the mackerel inclosed in the net the latter would not be harmed, But 
this did not succeed fully, since the gail was badly bitten and much injured by the dogfish, making this experiment 
a rather costly one, 
